tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-330632622024-03-23T17:42:33.427+00:00You've been noticedExploring how customer interaction can be managed more effectively to reduce costs and increase profit.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.comBlogger289125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-49594079289493700782009-08-20T14:17:00.000+00:002009-08-20T14:21:18.976+00:00Just A note<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Finding a lot of interesting links to research from people on Twitter these days. One of the more interesting questions being raised (in my mind anyway) is "what is the job of customer service", much as you might ask "what is the job your product performs for your customer". I think taking that perspective opens out a lot of innovative thinking. <br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=e5d5e909-77b2-8213-bd33-6f90f04cb66e' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-5730249248991127592009-07-29T13:37:00.001+00:002009-07-29T13:37:45.775+00:00Lost and Back and Lost Again....<p>And Welcome back.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SnBQn6H1mbI/AAAAAAAAAag/Yhq_iu2j3T4/s1600-h/pig%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="pig" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SnBQpbe0JpI/AAAAAAAAAak/KgNfnzldDbA/pig_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="392" height="227" /></a> </p> <p><strong><u>The New, New Thing & The Old, Old Problem</u>.</strong></p> <p>Werner, Amazon CIO, said an interesting thing at the last Telco2 in London: "we only look for old problems, and innovate to solve them". Getting your latest newest thing to integrate with the slightly older newer thing, isn't going to deliver you any meaningful innovation. JP has an interesting point to make on one of his recent post on <a href="http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2009/07/18/the-customer-is-the-scarcity/">Confused of Calcutta</a>: "The customer is the scarce resource". JP goes into an examination of peoples response to companies that create "artificial barriers" that create "artificial scarcity". Citing a study that indicates that those pirating games do so largely because the "free route" has less "friction to adoption" (i.e. less passwords, less pin numbers, less reconfirms, less etc. etc.), means that it is just easier to go free (if still, illegal). In a way these ties in with something <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/normanlewis">Norman Lewis</a> of Telco2 was saying; his kids made an estimate as to how much the artist themselves would make from any particular delivery channel, and chose the route that compensated them the most. I think both points are related: <strong>People Like Fair</strong>.</p> <p>What stinks of "not fair"? Ummm, banning Google Voice from Apple for one. Me not being able to get my LastFm on my iphone (both of which I pay for by the way). If you ask a kid, they can mostly tell you what the definition of Not Fair is, and here's another thing: in psychological experiments children will reject an unfair deal even if it means getting nothing at the end of the day. The child would rather not have anything, than have an unfair deal. And this kind of Fair Deal imperative seems to be in all cultures, it is embedded in our human design.</p> <p>So when I start thinking about Innovation, and Products, and Services, "what's fair" is not a bad place to start. What's fair will have an audience. What's fair gets a market. So perhaps the "Old Problem" is "How do we create and deliver a business model that is more fair than the solutions we see around us?".</p> <p><strong><u>And Speaking of Fair: VoiceSage</u></strong> </p> <p>The people at Telco2 are lining up more sessions to progress the ideas of the two sided business model for Telcos. They are also releasing a report on <a href="http://www.telco2.net/blog/2009/07/voice_20_beyond_unified_commun.html">Beyond Voice and Messaging</a> which goes into some detail as to how CEBP (Communications Enabled Business Processes) can deliver significant business value. I am delighted to say that one of VoiceSage's customers is the focus of one of the 8 <a href="http://www.stlpartners.com/telco2_voice-messaging/index.php">detailed case studies on the use of CEBP</a> and the customer in question has gone from strength to strength as they continue to use the VoiceSage service and business approach to enable process after process. </p> <p>There are many other companies now starting to say that Unified Communications is really just a bunch of CEBP's tied together. I've spoken directly to a senior analyst at a top firm about this, and we are of one opinion on that particular "marketing approach". </p> <p>Real thought leaders are asked to speak at places like <a href="http://europe.ecomm.ec/2009/day1-plenary-slot11php.php">eComm</a> uh hum .... and we use these forums not to speak about what we do, but what can be done. I am particularly thrilled that we will be on just before <strong>The Umair</strong> (Umair Haque) of the most consistently thought provoking, passionate, and genuinely "Disruptive" thinkers out there. </p> <p><strong>The Good, The Bad, and Just Being Able to Breath</strong></p> <p>I found <a href="http://www-931.ibm.com/bin/newsletter/tool/landingPage.cgi?lpId=1668">this piece on an IBM Forum</a> and thought it worth sharing. It basically says that many CFO's, in even the largest companies, need to have a look at what is tying up cash. Incorrect billing information, incorrect buying policy, or poor compliance with already agreed "blanket purchasing deals" result in millions going uncollected. In the IBM example it was $250m, for one company. GULP.  Not giving credit where credit is not due; not allowing your late payments to age and turn into bad debt; not being rigorous about removing all points of payment friction, will cost you a fortune.</p> <p> </p> <p>(Disclosure: I am an the Advisory Board to eComm).</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-35485268031941447392009-06-04T15:00:00.001+00:002009-06-04T15:02:06.030+00:00Updates Will Continue .....A brief hiatus dear reader(s). Just putting together a new blog structure. Meanwhile, why not jump over to @paulsweeney to follow my inane updates.
<p><img id="image329" src="http://freehogg.wordpress.com/files/2006/04/technorati.gif" alt="Technorati" /> technorati tags: <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/customer" rel="tag">customer</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/interaction" rel="tag">interaction</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/voice" rel="tag">voice</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/messaging" rel="tag">messaging</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/customer" rel="tag">customer</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/contact" rel="tag">contact</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-24776825818658214652009-04-15T14:28:00.001+00:002009-04-15T14:28:59.445+00:00Dialing To Get Things Done: Dial2Do.<p>I have been following with interest Irish company Dial2Do and I thought I'd extend the invitation to Sean O'Sullivan to tell us what they do, and why it might be important. </p> <p>1) For those that don't know what Dial2Do do (sic) can you give us a brief overview?</p> <p>Dial2Do is a phone service that's designed to help you get things done, hands-free. It's a regular phone number that you call, and you speak to get stuff done. So you say "text" to send a text message, say "email" to send an email, and so on. It doesn't require you to download or install anything on your phone - it's just a local number that you dial with any regular phone (fixed or mobile). We have about 50 things you can do - from texts, emails (both listen and send), twitter, reminders, and so on. We've put quite a bit of work in to stitch the popular "web" services in to Dial2Do, so you can use Google Calendar, or Gmail, or RememberTheMilk, or a range of other popular web tools and services, all by dialling a number and speaking. </p> <p>(2) You guys seem to connect to a lot of Social Media services such as Twitter. What kind of thinking lies behind this focus?</p> <p>There are a few reasons for this. One is that we're trying to "add voice" to the services that people already use. So if they use Gmail, well let's try and let people listen to their Gmail, and send their Gmail emails by speaking. Same thing with twitter, and with other services like Evernote (for saving things you want to remember) or RememberTheMilk (to do lists) and so on. Really our goal is to "add voice" in as simple and intuitive a way as possible for services people already use and love. </p> <p>Another reason is that we have a partner-driven approach to building our business. So our business goal is not really to get people coming to dial2do.com and using the service - it's to enable partners with millions of users to add voice to their service using the Dial2Do platform. The Social Media services are some of the key partners for us here, and they're very interested in new ways for their existing users to stay connected and engaged with their services. Dial2Do can help them do that. </p> <p>And lastly - many of these social media services are viral. When an update goes to twitter via Dial2Do, you'll notice it says "...from Dial2Do" at the end of the update. This helps promote the service among other twitter users, who then try it out, and in turn expose it to their followers on twitter. Email, texting, twitter and many other social media services are great for building awareness for Dial2Do.</p> <p>(3) Have you learned any lessons about developing for a "social phone" that are any different than other 2.0 services?</p> <p>I'm afraid so :-) When you're developing a "purely web" service, everything is about the web site itself, and making that web experience the best it can be for users. And when you "open" your site, it's open, world-wide, the instant you push the button. It's inherently global. </p> <p>With services that work from the phone, even ones like Dial2Do that don't require anything to be installed on the phone, things get more interesting. For example: we're open in 24 countries (meaning, we have local access numbers for calling Dial2Do in 24 countries) - it turns out that not all networks pass caller ID through to Dial2Do in the same way, so the system needs to be aware of the vagaries of how caller id might be managed in different places. Or take text messaging: it's a little tricky to reliably deliver a text message (and to ensure it has been delivered) in all the countries in which Dial2Do operates. </p> <p>As a result, we've tried to put a lot of thought in to making the experience via the phone as consistent and usable as possible, in every country where we have a presence. </p> <p>I think the other big think with respect to the "social phone" is how to successfully merge your phone contacts with your online contacts (from social networks, or Gmail, or Outlook). No one has really cracked this yet, and whoever does will be on to something big. </p> <p>(4) In one of your recent blog entries you say that remindering is a popular application on Dial2Do. Are there particular use cases that are driving this (birthdays, just regular to-do's etc.).</p> <p>That's right - reminders are really popular. I think there are two reasons. </p> <p>One of the reasons is simplicity: it's one of the simplest services to use - just call the number, say "reminder" and then say your piece. People find it's very habit-forming - every time they think "oh - must remember such and such" they hit the Dial2Do number and do a quick reminder. It's easy and you're done in 20-30 seconds. </p> <p>I think the second reason is that we've had a focus on the driver. One of our things has been to position the Dial2Do services as a great set of services to use while driving, if you have a Bluetooth headset or a hands-free carkit. And it turns out that people do quite a bit of, well, thinking, while they drive. On the way to work they think about their day ahead, and as they process what's in store, they start triggering little reminders - "must tell Ted about this" or "better not forget to mail that". I guess intuitively we all know that, but we see it in action with how some drivers use Dial2Do. During their morning commute, they create reminders, send texts, add things to their calendars and fire off emails - all en route to the office!</p> <p>(5) Given the wealth of Interconnecting API's Dial2Do what kind of role do you see for API's in your companies future?</p> <p>Well there's two parts to answering that. One is, we're obviously big consumers of APIs from other services. So for a start, we're trying to be good citizens in terms of using emerging standards like OAuth and the like, and offering people additional protection for their Dial2Do accounts (like the optional PIN protection we added last week). </p> <p>Dial2Do of course, is really a value-add voice platform, to enable other players to "add voice" to their own services. And so, we're working on our own API which we'll make available in a future release. Today we work with one or two key partners to trial the API and ensure we strike the right balance between simplicity and functionality, as befits a service like Dial2Do. </p> <p>(6) How are you going to deal with the body blow loss that Leinster will suffer at the hands of Muster?</p> <p>I'm in good shape for that game, as both my parents hail from Cork city centre. So it's clear which team I'll be supporting on the day :-) I've lived in Dublin most of my life, but the Cork roots go deep. On a serious note, it should be a fantastic occasion, and in fairness to Leinster, the tag of underdog will suit them to the ground - I'd expect a ferocious battle with both teams at full tilt before a packed Croke Park. Can't wait! </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-13804566842507647052009-04-07T19:38:00.001+00:002009-04-07T19:38:15.649+00:00Recession Pain Points<p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SduroMEt_RI/AAAAAAAAAZo/C6Z3qtw9tks/s1600-h/Consumer%20Segmentation%20Changing%20Behaviour%5B6%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Consumer Segmentation Changing Behaviour" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SdurpucQmtI/AAAAAAAAAZs/Ql4bWbW7zAk/Consumer%20Segmentation%20Changing%20Behaviour_thumb%5B4%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="479" height="453" /></a> </p> <p>The <a href="http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2009/04/how-to-market-in-a-downturn/ar/1">Harvard Business Review</a> has friendly matrix that tells us that all retail buying is now up for re-evaluation as consumers change their mindsets. Marketing departments have to adjust to the new realities with some "old fashioned" thinking:</p> <p>- <strong>Support your brand and brand values</strong>, it's "good investment" spend because in the long run, brand value is a huge profit generator for companies;</p> <p>- <strong>Prune products and brands</strong> that were ailing in the first place or are unsuitable for current economic conditions. Also prune back to "core products" and abandon weak product line extensions;</p> <p>- <strong>Maintain brand positioning</strong>; don't move down to value category just to fill short term revenue objectives, you will alienate your core customer base, and leave yourself poorly positioned for the upturn when it comes;</p> <blockquote> <p><em>In deciding which marketing tactics to employ, it’s critical to track how customers are reassessing priorities, reallocating budgets, switching among brands and product categories, and redefining value. It’s therefore essential to continue investing in market research</em></p> </blockquote> <p> The responses to recession also include the introduction of lower priced brands; cash incentives, credit plans, etc. etc. I found that other interesting points buried in here were: </p> <p>                 REMOVE FRICTION FROM ADOPTION</p> <blockquote> <p>            BUILD TRUST IN YOUR BRAND</p> <p>            BRANDS ARE BUILT ON EXPERIENCES</p> </blockquote> <p>You don't need to blanket reduce costs by 20%. You need to target cost reduction at the right products, in the right segments in response to shifting customer psychology and the realities of your product category. </p> <p>Consumer confidence is currently shattered by fear. As a company some of the ways you can begin to think about the challenge this sets is to think about how your customer contact strategy needs to be amended and augmented <strong>to build trust in your brand</strong>. These shifts can be subtle (i.e. Agent Scripts) or fairly dramatic (focusing on emotional responses not agent minutes as a critical metric). I think that the companies that make the very special effort to treat customers well, and to deliver exceptional experiences, will be the ones that build deep seated trust. Cutting back on customer service will do the opposite.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-29083835520539785082009-03-20T14:21:00.001+00:002009-03-20T14:24:54.310+00:00Business Models, Cheating, and Retail.<p>Taxonomy of <a href="http://www.boxuk.com/blog/monetizing-your-web-app-business-models">Web Business Models</a>: What I like about the wheel below is that someone thought it would be neat to lay it out in a non-tabular format. Having created a standard table, this new view gives us clearer view on what the popular models are. Imagine if you cross tabulated with actual "likelihood of success" measures available elsewhere. </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/ScOmVGIZa-I/AAAAAAAAAZg/EBfx4eSeOLc/s1600-h/WebBusinessModels%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="WebBusinessModels" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/ScOmWHOqqjI/AAAAAAAAAZk/0vMvaKOI14U/WebBusinessModels_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="410" height="343" /></a> </p> <p><strong>Incentives To Cheat:</strong> scale, probability of detection, group membership, and importantly (for me) signaling to ones sense of self, and sense of group. If everyone in group keeps the rules, I won't break them: the further we move from the object itself (i.e. money) and more towards its abstract (derivatives), the more likely we are to cheat, or perhaps act irresponsibly. I like how these ideas could also be related to how we agree to actions, and future actions, in terms of paying bills, keeping appointments, and other social routines.</p> <p><embed height="326" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="446" src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" wmode="transparent" bgcolor="#ffffff" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/embed/DanAriely_2009-embed_high.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/DanAriely-2009.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=487" /></p> <p><strong><a href="http://blogs.sas.com/sascom/index.php?/archives/478-Big-thoughts-from-The-Big-Think.html#extended">Retail Therapy: Reinvention</a></strong>. The SAS blog has an interesting piece on large scale retailing and how the downturn is affecting it. Yes there is a need to reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, with fewer available resources and with no capital expenditure, but there is also a need to realise that the actual consumer is changing from a badge wearing object seeker, to a "social customer" that will need to be engaged through social networks, and perhaps with definitions of product/ service that may be significantly different than those we employ today.</p> <p><strong>Concluding Thought:</strong> Wouldn't it be great to see how new web2.0 business models might be applied to "traditional retail" organisations, and informed by areas such as social psychology & behavioural economics?</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-27697671761889697722009-03-12T16:01:00.001+00:002009-03-12T16:01:29.745+00:00The Foot is In The Other Shoe, Now....<p><strong><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SbkxuVFSpaI/AAAAAAAAAZI/JLeQpmLwrHU/s1600-h/Suidice%20Perhaps%20Surreal%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Suidice Perhaps Surreal" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/Sbkxw0FzfLI/AAAAAAAAAZM/cVD1GbPeqj4/Suidice%20Perhaps%20Surreal_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="378" height="323" /></a> </strong></p> <p><strong>Banks Bid For Your Money !</strong></p> <p>Great little piece from <a href="http://springwise.com/financial_services/spaarbod/">Springwise</a> on a company that allows you to post online how much money you want to save, and find out what the different rates of return would be like with different providers. But you don't have accept the offers, you can leave it there, and have the banks bid on your money. Ah, that sound nice. If only we all thought about money that "rationally".</p> <p><strong>Language Constructs Reality?</strong></p> <p>I've always been interested in the way that people say things. By phrasing it one way, everybody co-operates, and plays nice. Same thing phrased another way, hackles are raised, categorical responses loaded, and your diner party derailed. <a href="http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/03/02/fools-and-their-money-metaphors/">Ribbonfarm</a> has a beautiful post on how: </p> <p><em>Your metaphors, not your financial or mathematical acumen, determine the outcome of your dealings with money</em></p> <p>For many in the corporate life 80% of the money we make flows through our accounts automatically, unremarkably, unnoticed. The last 20% we do notice, but we notice it in relation to a notional "high water mark" of about $5,000. In normal consumption, the most we spend would be around this amount (we consider it a lot of money!). Yet, say changing our credit card to another provider, "only" saves us $5/month, the price of Cappuccino, and hey that's hardly worth talking about. Interestingly what has happened is that you have categorised the saving and made an object comparison (coffee, cinema, diner out).  </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SbkxyOmPmkI/AAAAAAAAAZQ/VtkJTC29eUw/s1600-h/Money%20As%20Object%5B3%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Money As Object" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SbkxzDHUv9I/AAAAAAAAAZU/4UJlDr2oIjc/Money%20As%20Object_thumb%5B1%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="388" height="260" /></a> </p> <p>For marketers this is a very handy chart. People don't always make rational choices. The "reward" may be very large, but the probability of getting it very low, yet we still play the lotto. 10 Euro today is inexplicably more attractive than 15 Euro next week. </p> <p>Entrepreneurs think of money as a goal (Money As Gaol Metaphor). How much money would you need to free from your job for one year in order to build your new freelance business?</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/Sbkx0sCXnPI/AAAAAAAAAZY/_ITl2dfyL3k/s1600-h/Money%20As%20Goal%5B3%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Money As Goal" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/Sbkx1zdJJ-I/AAAAAAAAAZc/3-phwYyp8a0/Money%20As%20Goal_thumb%5B1%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="390" height="260" /></a> </p> <p>Venkatesh has <a href="http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/03/02/fools-and-their-money-metaphors/">13 Money Metaphors</a> That are well worth checking out.</p> <p><strong>Insurance Company Advise You On Road Conditions</strong></p> <p>Helping you to stay off the road during icy conditions, a Dutch insurance company <a href="http://springwise.com/weekly/2009-03-12.htm#onnaonna">will text you a warning</a>. Ok. But not really cutting edge is it, even from a customer experience standpoint. By extending the capability you could "confirm" that there are indeed difficult driving conditions in your location (citizen journalism), or share specifics (hyper-local), perhaps through <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/07/twitter-to-start-serving-local-news-to-users/">Twitter</a>, or re-publish this warning to others or online. A phone call that gave you the warning with the option of connecting to a pre-approved, and free taxi service would be an amazing service option. Just state your location, and we will pick you up. Now that's service.</p> <p><u>What's with the Picture?</u> That financial cataclysm that surrounds us now must feel a little surreal, like our world is out of control. Perhaps this is a learned response set. </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-61631520996855488002009-03-09T11:15:00.001+00:002009-03-09T11:15:49.220+00:00Cut Cut Cut - Customer Service. Two Point Oh Dear. Lets all just be thoughtful here.<p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SbT6YJnVDeI/AAAAAAAAAZA/RrL6dFsVD2w/s1600-h/Image8%5B7%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Image8" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SbT6Y9NF5lI/AAAAAAAAAZE/MyJw8LmHw7s/Image8_thumb%5B5%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="279" height="229" /></a>  </p> <p><strong>Now is the Time to Cut Cut Cut?</strong></p> <p>Companies are facing pressure to reduce costs in the face of falling retail sales and demand in the overall general economy. Yet the pressure is still there to deliver exceptional customer service, the kind that drives differentiation and customer loyalty. So right off bat, let's kill some Cap Ex. And while we are at it let's cut 10% of customer service staff, and lets cut some of the resources over there, and there, and there. The problem with cutting resources is you are going to cut the overall (or more truthfully, underlying) capability of performance in customer service. That is because you have left the old process the way it is and took out the lubrication that allowed it to work before. You lowered the water, and the rocks have now stopped the flow. Well, maybe now is a good time to look at tall this "2.0 Customer Service Stuff , Right". Yes, for sure, but thoughtfully.</p> <p>If you want to truly effect metrics of any kind you have to get into root cause and effect relationships, and for <em>root</em> you can substitute <em>route</em>. <strong><em>CEBP + Reports + Analysis</em></strong> gives you the ability to see why and where variation is occurring. But here's the rub: most of the time you are not collecting the data that you need to in order to control these variations, and then, you lack the tools and methodologies for rolling out a structured testing and deployment plan. If this sounds a bit like "Lean Production" and "Lean Enterprise", then you are right. If it sounds a bit like "Agile Software" and "Agile Programming", then you are right. </p> <p>It is a good time to look at SaaS (software as a Service) to extend your capabilities without extending your costs, but you should look at the total costs of adopting any SaaS solution, including integration costs, training, specifics on support response times, and any nasty hidden extra's such as "storage space per seat/user", "number of users in a price band", and your access rights to your own data.</p> <p><strong>Community & Customer</strong></p> <p>In looking at some 2.0 CRM2.0, Social Media options, some companies might look to Community Self Help Hubs to take the load off the customer service representative but this is (IMHO) not going to work without a full analysis and understanding of true customer Interaction. This will require insights from a number of different domains including <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKnzPHtf9u4">data analysis</a> capabilities, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_interaction">sociology</a>-<a href="http://enterprise2blog.com/2009/02/the-unsociable-radically-individualist-soul-of-social-media/">social media insights</a>; and <a href="http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=343&date=1">psychology</a>. How these different approaches are harnessed to generate true customer insight will truly separate the winners from the also ran's (more on this below).</p> <p>One company I have been following with interest recently is <a href="http://www.helpstream.com/">Helpstream</a> having been pointed towards them by a <a href="http://the56group.typepad.com/pgreenblog/2008/10/helpstream-is-o.html">Paul Greenberg article.</a> A <a href="http://corpblog.helpstream.biz/helpstream-blog/2009/2/10/the-roi-of-community-based-support.html">blog post</a> where the company made some very cogent points and powerful claims for the cost reduction and improvement in agent performance was significantly called into question by a commentator (in the comments section, and posted anonymously. Boo - Hiss). The company CEO replied in full, and convincingly in my book. (a) They published the original comment, which they didn't have to; (b) they gave a full and detailed explanation of the assumptions underpinning their assertions, and (c) they had their CEO do it, and sign his name. This is really walking the walk.</p> <p><strong>Did I Happen Upon A Twitter Business Model?</strong></p> <p>Before I talk about it, lets just take a moment to dwell in the Y2K awesomeness of spending nearly $40m without a business model (sic). Then, the cheek of it; to "crowdsource" ideas for a business model, yeah you guys out there, users, you awesome lead users, how about you guys tell us how you think we might make some money out of this? So let me start by taking <a href="http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php">Mr.Kelly's taxonomy</a> of Free </p> <p>(1) <strong><em>Immediacy:</em></strong> would you pay to get your updates in real (real) time? would you pay to get superstar - uberstar -realstar updates before anyone else?. After all, some people can re-blog, re-mix, re-message to get further attention.</p> <p>(2) <strong><em>Personalised:</em></strong> would you pay to have your stream "tweeted" to your "live context", i.e. where you are, who is near you, what is near you, what semantically is shown to be "important". After all, past a certain number of follows the stream becomes pure serendipity, unless you are willing to group, and group, and regroup (which I think Facebook has shown people don't do, and which Linked in has shown they cant do). Perhaps you would pay to have your stream personalised, managed, maximised?</p> <p>(3) <strong><em>Interpretation:</em></strong> this is the idea that you reduce the cost and friction involved in gaining access to the "raw material input", or in extracting the reports etc., and then charging for the knowledge you bring as an expert. Well in the case of Twitter it is effectively outsourced Interpretation to third parties such as Mr. Tweet, our virtual concierge for "who should I follow" interpretations, but perhaps Twitter can bring other insights as an "expert", or sell "tool-sets" to experts that enable them to be effective deliverers of that service (Twitter -As -Adobe).</p> <p>(4) <strong><em>Authenticity</em></strong>: the knowledge that "you are who you say you are", or "this is the real-link/report", etc <a href="http://www.yourtechstuff.com/techwire/2009/03/twitter-land-rush.html">see here</a>. How can we "authentically consume", or "consume the authentic" OR "participate in the authentic" and "further the authentic". Some deep dark part of my mind tells me that "authenticity" + "real-time" will unlock value.</p> <p>(5) <strong><em>Accessibility</em></strong>: as Kelly says, "ownership sucks", (money, time, resources). Better to know that you can get it when you want, on-demand. So what can Twitter give Access to?: your network (a la linkedin - done); your attention? (the stream - done). Perhaps Twitter has access to higher level "nodal influencers" for any particular subject/ topic/ event. </p> <p>(6) <strong><em>Embodiment</em></strong>: turning the resources and characteristics, maybe even the brand of twitter, into a physical object or <a href="http://twestival.com/">experience</a>. See <a href="http://sxoop.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/twitter-mosaic-and-ec2/">Twitter Mosaic</a> for examples of people turning a social object into a real one. Of course the "real value" here is "insidership", in that it is broadcasting your popularity of any social network. "Twit Talks-Where The Influencers Meet" an invite only event would make money, I am sure about it.</p> <p>(7) <strong><em>Patronage: </em></strong>in Kelly's model this means that fans want to pay artists in the sense that "We Are All Medici". It taps a sense of tribe, of fairness, and fairness is a very powerful social motivator. Would we hat-tip money into a particularly good Twitterer? or is "re-tweeting", and "follower base attention" its own reward here? How about Kiva-giving to a particular project when it demonstrates results (i.e. we vaccinated <u>these</u> 20 children with <u>your</u> last donation?).</p> <p>(9) <strong><em>Findability</em></strong>: with so much flow, how do you know what's important "in there"? Google-in-Twitter for rifle accuracy Semantic-Search for meaning-memes, abstractions, <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/05/its-time-to-start-thinking-of-twitter-as-a-search-engine/">brand moods</a>? or Stumble-upon traffic generation for serendipity?</p> <p>I Think There Might Be One More Boxes To This Taxonomy</p> <p>(10) <strong><em>The Guarantee Privilege</em></strong>: You certainly should not get in the way of network-building effects, or restrict assets that have the affect of restricting attractors. How about "Guaranteed": "Paul is Guaranteed-In" so what he says is "True". or "Paul is Trusted-In" so his tweets are prioritised in the stream. Of course, Privilege is a program to which you must be invited, and pay a small amount to use. Being privileged should in the best of worlds add value both way. In a way LinkedIn tried this in order to get us to want to look at others that have reviewed our profile, because that is a weak signal that they want to speak to us about opportunities. Sending direct mail to people you don't know on LinkedIn is a "privilege" or annoyance, depending on how it is used. But if someone "Guaranteed" makes you an offer, or gives you an invite, it would be red boxed and important.</p> <p>This week I bought a MacBook Air through Twitter. Someone in Ireland had one, posted up the spec and price, and then the next person in their network, and in mine, re-tweeted it. I have been loitering around the decision to buy a laptop for a while. I reviewed his Tweet stream and he was active, connected, and "social" (note, not social media :) I saw one of his contacts comment on his offer saying "yip, saw two myself and bought them". Now I kind-a knew this person, knew her to be reputable, and a techie to boot. She would not buy crap. SO my next tweet was "I will buy that. Consider it Sold".</p> <p>The glue and medium that this exchange (hopefully) occurred in, is TRUST. Social Capital. </p> <p>I know that there are "big data table opportunities" relating to some of the opportunities listed above, but perhaps "Social Trust" is one of those base line assets that Twitter embodies in its network. Social Filtering and Recommendation is one way to make money from this.</p> <p><strong><em></em></strong></p> <p>Irish company <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/LouderVoice/7397405425">LouderVoice</a> do a nice line in using Facebook for the same kind of thing, using Facebook connect. They've just announced a plug in that will allow you to "recommend and review" items and have them posted to Facebook friends. Same reason I bought on Twitter. But LouderVoice would allow me to post my review (and maybe my satisfaction with the purchase") on the VoiceSage blog, and other places I choose. </p> <p><strong>Wrap Up</strong></p> <p><strong>So how does all this tie together?</strong></p> <p><strong>- SaaS can be used to extend your capability without Cap Ex, but you should be careful about estimating the Total Cost;</strong></p> <p><strong>- To improve customer service you have to re-design it and examine root cause and effect relationships;</strong></p> <p><strong>- Community of Customers is not a panacea for all service ills. Without a culture of customer service that understands that everything it does will be transparent in the network; </strong></p> <p> </p> <p>And What's With The Picture?: what you see isn't always what you get! </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-71318749770335807272009-03-05T11:19:00.002+00:002009-03-05T20:02:32.676+00:00eComm09 et al.<p> <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/Sa-1MoREFhI/AAAAAAAAAY4/YenSsq1lKJc/s1600-h/Graham-at-Ecomm09%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Graham-at-Ecomm09" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/Sa-1Ooxuf1I/AAAAAAAAAY8/A7f3b-GMRyk/Graham-at-Ecomm09_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="396" height="279" /></a> </p> <p>Graham Brierton, CTO VoiceSage, ecomm09 <a href="http://photos.duncandavidson.com/ecomm2009/e37fd1306">Source</a>:</p> <p>Well our presentation at <a href="http://ecommconf.com/">eComm</a> has been delivered and you can check it out <a href="http://www.voicesage.com/ecomm09">here</a>. We will post video if and when it becomes available. We think that there are some important points to be communicated  relating to the true value of CEBP (Communications Enabled Business Processes), and the potential future value of CEBP in a Telco2 / Web2.0/ Enterprise2.0 world. eComm is seen as the leading event globally for disruptive telecommunications service providers so we are very proud to be there.</p> <p>The presentations are put up on <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/tag/ecomm">Slideshare</a> for viewing and comment, but Twitter is the <a href="http://ecommconf.com/2009/twitter/">backchannel</a> of choice for all these conferences and eComm is no different, though less busy than I for one expected (perhaps a reflection of social media participation versus consumption). </p> <p>There have been a few notable announcements so far, including the open source, royalty free release of the Skype Wideband audio codec which may become a defacto standard in future communication modes (more <a href="http://www.fiercevoip.com/story/ecomm-2009-skype-jannounces-royality-free-silk-superwideband-voice-codec/2009-03-03">here</a>). It is part of the Skype-Everywhere strategy, and from an Innovation point of view, well worth keeping an eye on. </p> <p>Other announcements (<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/eCommConf/11-jamie-siminoff">here</a>) included the launch of <a href="http://www.grid.com">www.grid.com</a> by Jamie Siminoff enabling people to build fairly sophisticated telecommunications-web services. Jamie was the driver behind <a href="http://www.phonetag.com">www.phonetag.com</a> so he is worth watching.  </p> <p>The good people over at dial2do have an <a href="http://blog.dial2do.com/2009/03/04/voicesage-qa-with-paul-sweeney/">interview with me</a> over on their blog is you want to drop over and say hello. <a href="http://www.dial2do.com">Dial2Do</a> were speakers at ecom 2008, and their thoughts on "social phone" and "social media" are worth following.
Update: nearly forgot. HT www.sabrinadent.com for all her design effort on the presentation. She tells some of the Elephant Story here http://www.sabrinadent.com/2009/03/05/the-adventures-of-invisible-elephant/
</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-24236098199169298602009-02-13T15:36:00.001+00:002009-02-13T15:36:44.259+00:00Lets Talk About Data, Data Sources, How We Look at Data.<p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SZWTfGdl_zI/AAAAAAAAAYo/bEV1ECExuCA/s1600-h/PopularWisdom4.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" border="0" alt="Popular Wisdom" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SZWThLT57EI/AAAAAAAAAYs/UEfv_PWXTfY/PopularWisdom_thumb2.png?imgmax=800" width="413" height="309" /></a> </p> <p><strong>"30% of kids finish high-school in the USA"</strong> </p> <blockquote> <p>(Bill Gates, TED 2009)"</p> </blockquote> <p>For a long time, this figure was hidden because the system was only measuring the "drop out rate" from the start of final year to end of final year, not from start of high school to finishing high school. Oh yeah, if you are poor, and a minority, it ain' looking too good for you. You have a higher chance of going to jail than finishing a four year college degree. Turns out the big difference is good teachers, getting them, rewarding them, celebrating them, keeping them. A good teacher will increase the performance of a class by 10% right away. It would remove the difference between the performance of USA vs Asia in Education. Seniority, having a masters degree; no effect on being a good teacher. It just seems that some people are great teachers and we have not the first clue why. The only thing we know is that past performance is a great predictor of future performance.</p> <p>In the Q&A at Ted with Bill Gates he goes on speak about the problem of Malaria and African poverty illustrating that as you improve health rates, adults need less children to be born, because there is a higher chance of having children that survive into adulthood that can in turn look after you (the oldest pension scheme in the world). As family size decreases, the average wealth per family increases. And now the link. Another one of the Ted Talks investigates the predictive power of interventions with regards <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/emily_oster_flips_our_thinking_on_aids_in_africa.html">Aids in Africa</a>: how about this: your likelihood of engaging in safe practices and heath enhancing activities is directly related to your already existing expectations of longevity. If you expect to die of malaria in the next 10 years, then you are more likely to engage in risky practices in the near term. In other presentations, free trade and exporting are also shown as being directly correlated with higher income levels, and longer life, but what if doubling free trade actually quadrupled the incidence of aids in a particular area? The more physical movement there is, the more contagions spread. The take away being that spending $50bn on education as an intervention for Aids, might be misplaced. Its not more awareness that a condom might save your life, but that you will live longer because the system is going to ensure that you don't die in childbirth, that you have nets to fight malaria, that you have access to micro-capital to build a small business.</p> <p>What I like about these accounts is that they demonstrate that sometimes what you think you know is wrong. The data is "showing you to increase spending in education to impact aids, as education changes behaviour" (sic). We know that good teachers and good teaching drives student performance, yet we have no granularity, DATA or predictability that helps this to be managed. In other words, we have no causality. In (oh dear, yes 'my masters programme') we came across concepts such as "faulty causality", and "statistical artifacts". I wonder how many of these "facts" surround us every day in the assumptions that underpin how we manage our businesses and relationships? Facts such as "this is an unprofitable customer"? </p> <p><strong>IT Investment As Barrier To Entry</strong></p> <p>Facts such as "IT helps smaller players compete globally",(<a href="http://andrewmcafee.org/blog/?p=611">Andrew McAfee</a>)  and the rise of Free IT such as Google Mail, Docs, and eePC's, lower the barriers to entry associated with starting a business. We hear this a lot. We hear that Enterprise 2.0 will empower the end user, re-shape the corporation, perhaps even redefine what it is to be a corporation. But perhaps it also helps larger organisations overcome the drawbacks associated with scale (over formalisation, speed, flexibility) and actually makes larger companies more efficient and effective than smaller competitors. One of the reasons being pointed to is that technology (and its cost) is one thing, but getting more and better data, and making better decisions based on that data, is another. And the problem with that is that people make decisions, and very often, we make decisions based upon incorrect assumptions, faulty causality, and statistical artifacts with no true predictive power.  </p> <p><strong>Information as As Asset and 'Competence'</strong></p> <p><a href="http://www.brucemacvarish.com/2009/02/the-enterprise-edge-matrix-2009.html">Bruce MacVarish</a> has a great take on what this means for enterprise systems. With relatively abundantly available "Technology" (i.e. Technology is not the scarcity asset), the ability to master concepts such as sensing, flow, collective intelligence, and collaboration become key. It is no surprise that these are "soft competencies", "tacit knowledge based", and "culturally embedded". All incredibly hard to develop and incredibly hard to emulate. What McAfee's points out is that the knowledge and data accumulated will have disproportionate effects on market concentration ratios (i.e. there can only be one market maker such as Google, this is the nature of platform economics).  So you ring up two credit card companies and ask for another credit card: the first one knows who you are, who your friends are, what their credit ratings are, and asks a friend of yours how good a credit risk you are (via sms/ voice call), and at the end of a two minute call tells you that you can either pick up your card at the local shop (where a card is being encoded, and which is now expecting you). Oh, you didn't even call the second company silly..... the killer point is that they knew a friend of yours that would vouch for you, which had a higher predictive value than any geo-targeting scheme. And thus, the mass of relationship data has a steadily increasing marginally impact.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SZWTh14x-ZI/AAAAAAAAAYw/RpWeeOqrNww/s1600-h/EnterpriseSensingSystem6.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" border="0" alt="Enterprise Sensing System" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SZWTi8r8xLI/AAAAAAAAAY0/fMg91FDvj8w/EnterpriseSensingSystem_thumb4.png?imgmax=800" width="515" height="374" /></a> </p> <p><strong> Processes Attract Conversations, and Vice Versa </strong></p> <p> Social Computing Magazine has a <a href="http://socialcomputingmagazine.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=670">great example</a> of this kind of thinking in progress and it deservedly received much commentary this week. I believe it contains some "evident truths" which we've held here at VoiceSage for some time: I have messed with the semantics a bit to put our slant on it:</p> <p>- Processes That Attract Conversations</p> <p>- Processes In Support of Conversations</p> <blockquote> <p>"A good example of <strong><i>Conversation -> Process Integration</i></strong> was recent demonstrated, but to elaborate, by pulling Tweets into the SAP Business Suite and applying a sentiment engine to those tweets, a customer service rep can make those conversations actionable by identifying and emerging customer or brand issue. Someone may be complaining about your product or service. With Sentiment Analysis not only can an organization proactively address a looming customer crisis, but they can initiate corporate processes such as raising a Customer Service Ticket to initiate a problem resolution process"</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>"Going the other way, a super example of <strong><i>Process -> Conversation Integration</i></strong> is the deployment of Marketing Campaigns using Social Channels. Using Business Suite functionality, users can now design and deploy marketing campaigns which can execute over a variety of social environments, including Twitter"</p> </blockquote> <p> Now I think that this is a pretty "shallow example" of the potentials in the MacVarish model, but it gives you a sense that the big vendors are definitely getting it. They are not "getting it big" yet, to do that, they will have to come along to hear VoiceSage at the eComm09 talk in March, in sunny San Fran. :)</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-3927267748320013972009-01-30T12:17:00.001+00:002009-01-30T12:17:37.292+00:00The Problem With Communications Mashups - In the Media At Least<p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SYLv3VM0QKI/AAAAAAAAAYc/Ekywc62jgnA/s1600-h/IBMBusinessModelTransformation4.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" border="0" alt="IBM Business Model Transformation" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SYLv37tzdLI/AAAAAAAAAYg/qu7mgcnxDLc/IBMBusinessModelTransformation_thumb.png?imgmax=800" width="448" height="297" /></a> </p> <p>IBM have a lovely <a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/industries/telecom/us/index.html">new report</a> on Telco2 (oops, Telco with a Focus on Web 2.0) and they immediately draw our attention to the imperative for innovation around the actual core business model of the Telco/ enterprise. Revenue growth also shares significant top of mind, while cost take out takes a back seat. </p> <p>This is followed up in the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0469654.htm">media</a> (CNN Money no less) by a joint IBM - Avaya story around the IBM Mashup Centre Capability. </p> <blockquote> <p>As demonstrated by Avaya, a mashup prototype for field engineering managers enables them to check for new customer problems, assign field engineers, review status of ongoing problems, and, if necessary, contact the assigned engineer or customer using e-mail, short message service (SMS) or click-to-call, all from a single Web page. When contacting the customer by phone, the engineering manager can then click the "add" button to quickly bring other participants into a conference call.</p> </blockquote> <p>Now I am not blowing our own horn by saying that you can do all this with <a href="http://www.voicesage.com/">VoiceSage</a> right now, but what is definitely interesting is that they make such a big deal out of "getting at the enterprise data", previously, so cleverly locked away, (sorry locked down), buy (sorry 'by') the software vendors. They also, clearly "get" that enterprise data, and web-native data, will need to mind-meld. They also "get" that enterprise mashups are going to have "security" front and centre. It all sounds good. Oh, and if you think any of this is divorced from happenings in the world of the iPhone, Nuance and IBM have done a deal in relation to speech recognition and IVR etc. so watch speech recognition and speech navigation enter the on-demand, enterprise mashup toolkit. </p> <p>Now here's the take away: To do this well IBM-Avaya-Other ecosystem has to completely seek to break out of the silo - websphere support strategy (IHMH). Go to ProgrammableWeb.com and look at what people are building: let me give you a clue, it involves Google maps and little else. Something is wrong in the world of Mashups and nobody has quite cracked it yet. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says "I really feel like a mashup today", a fry maybe, but not a mashup. </p> <p>VoiceSage does this Customer Logistics 2.0 piece day in day out, and I can tell you that our customers are definitely concerned with issues such as "number of late deliveries", "number of no shows", but at the end of the day, you do very well indeed to point out 10 fold reduction in costs. Cost Take Out is way, way more important right now than using Enterprise 2.0 for potential revenue generation. I like the idea of integration of enterprise data with web data and I for one look forward to seeing examples of companies going from "no IBM enterprise software", and "No integration partner" in the mainstream media. The IBM approach presented in these instances above seems to me to be more "Enterprise Forklift Upgrade - Engagement Strategy" to be sold to CIO's, than true "E2.0 Thinking".</p> <p>For a different perspective, and one I think has merit, see WIPRO white paper on it <a href="http://www.wipro.com/pdf/whitepaper/unified_communication_communication_enabled_business_process.pdf">here</a>.</p> <p><strong>Meanwhile, Somewhere Else in The Cloud</strong></p> <p><a href="http://twitter.com/dhinchcliffe">Dion Hinchcliffe</a> (big time HT's this week) points us towards <a href="http://www.cloudmq.com/">CloudMQ</a>, an enterprise class messaging (queuing) service. Interestingly it sits entirely in Amazon cloud, but I am guessing that like <a href="http://www.joyent.com">Joyent</a>, these guys are looking to be cloud-platform-agnostic (for complete data and application portability).  </p> <p>Jim Courtney over at SkypeJournal <a href="http://skypejournal.com/2009/01/skype-everywhere-coming-soon-to-ibm.html">reports</a> that <a href="https://www.lotuslive.com/">Lotus Live</a> and Skype partner up for collaboration in the cloud, part of the 'Skype everywhere' strategy. What was neat about this (for me) is that Skype point out that Skype is a great way of working with outsourcers and subcontractors globally. Indeed it is. This makes the integration very interesting. Companies have already adapted their behaviour now all IBM has to do is make Lotus relevant to that workflow. Jim goes on to quote <a href="http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2009/01/ibm-beats-microsoft-and-google-to-the-social-punch.html">Andy</a> Abramson that  this is "being embedded into an offering that is key to IBM's future success in delivering cloud-based outsourced business services".  Lets look at that again: Skype being embedded into IBM is key to IBM's outsourcing success. On a conference call from eComm09 this week, Skype pointed out that over 10% of their users now use it for Conference calling. That's huge.</p> <p><strong>So Is Any of This IBM Stuff Actually E2.0-Cool?</strong> </p> <p>C'mon, it's IBM and Avaya and their are very smart cookies working there (sic). <a href="http://www.brucemacvarish.com/2009/01/enterprise-filtering-for-relevant-people-info-expertise.html">Bruce McVarish</a> points out to "IBM's Social Networks & Discovery (SaND) research and their focus on filter improvements to identify contextually relevant people, documents and expertise within the enterprise". Basically, the system enables you to see the relationships between people, tags, and documents (i.e. is socially aware). More <a href="http://www.techcrunchit.com/2009/01/29/when-ibm-beats-facebook-and-twitter-discover-relevant-people-within-your-network/">here.</a> So imagine you are on a Skype call to India with a software contractor, and you can hover over the name, and see others in your social network that have recommended that person, or hover over the link to the document they are sending you to see other documents or presentations that might be useful to you? Oh, yeah you can already do some of that through the LinkedIn integration but its all that stuff locked up behind the firewall that you are trying to get at (if you are a big organisation). So all this "context" stuff and "sensing" is going to be important? :)</p> <p><strong>And Back To The Business Model</strong></p> <p>So where did we start this, oh yeah, Business Model Innovation. To be truly innovative companies need to find new ways of <em>generating</em> value, not of shifting value along the value chain (in the case of developer channel decimation in the face of mashup potential, and for Telco's minutes calling revenues in the case of international calling). If you are an integrator, you will not be able to charge what you were charging before. The "value proposition" was in the fact that their was friction between systems, and you had to be trained, and experienced in dealing with them. I suspect Integrators will extract 1/10th of the value they previously did from enterprise integrations. So this is value destruction for Systems Integrators. Calling from Skype to Skype, SkypeOut, Skype Conference Calling is value destruction for Telco's, premier Conferencing providers, and potentially for Unified Communications Providers. There is no longer "special sauce" involved in making all these systems gel together.</p> <p>Generating <strong><em>new value</em></strong> is where the real strategic challenge is, and this means tapping into global social change. Here's <a href="http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/article-5322-the-10-worst-corporations-of-2008.html">some companies</a> that are in strategic decay because they are demonstrating a lack of purpose. Here's one example from that list - The Swiss company Roche makes a range of HIV-related drugs:</p> <blockquote> <p>Roche charges $25,000 a year for Fuzeon. It does not offer a discount price for developing countries. Like most industrialized countries, South Korea maintains a form of price controls. The national health insurance program sets prices for medicines, and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs listed Fuzeon at $18,000 a year. South Korea’s per capita income is roughly half that of the United States. Instead of providing Fuzeon at South Korea’s listed level—and still turning a profit—Roche refuses to make the drug available in South Korea. South Korean activists report that the head of Roche Korea told them, “<em><strong>We are not in business to save lives, but to make money. Saving lives is not our business.”</strong></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Lovely. And guess what, we Trust companies, governments and institutions <a href="http://www.edelman.com/trust/2009/">less than ever</a>. A "catastrophic decline" in the USA, but higher levels of trust emerging in the developing economics (BRIC). In Europe Finance, Auto, Utilities are particularly badly hit. Perhaps, activities designed to build trust relationships will be the true corporate asset of the future, and perhaps, how we use technology and communications to build these trust relationships, would be an interesting starting place. </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-45107779040862140562009-01-27T16:24:00.001+00:002009-01-27T16:24:23.373+00:00IGO People - IGO Here<p> <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SX81MZFd_FI/AAAAAAAAAYU/RVgHiBM_p0A/s1600-h/IGOPeople%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="IGOPeople" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SX81NcBKRnI/AAAAAAAAAYY/HPODNgHOYZg/IGOPeople_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="403" height="188" /></a> </p> <p>I've been in conversation with the <a href="http://www.igopeople.com">IGOPeople</a> people for a while now and their site launch has impressed me for a number of reasons. But first, the strategic positioning: IGOPeople is a space where conversations between individuals, groups, and organisations can be seen, and followed, and published. In my opinion, its part of this new social media / CRM2.0/ Social CRM thing. As I said, I've spoken with the IGO-Peeps and they have a pretty deep vision for the site. Here's what has impressed me to date:</p> <p>- It looks pretty damn good and its damned easy to sign up and get started (low adoption friction);</p> <p>- Conversations are flows;</p> <p>- Conversations are facilitated from within IGO, or can flow from "outside-into-IGO". Loads of examples of from Twitter to IGO and IGO out to Twitter (DellCamp being one example);</p> <p>- They have managed to entice some pretty major companies to try out this "new type of conversation" and they are obviously experimenting with different engagement models;</p> <p>- They have "Individual's" conversation flows going, and that's pretty hard to do (HT to Campbell Scott for making that happen).</p> <p><strong>Best of Luck to Them. You have to ask yourself why a company wouldn't want to at least experiment with this.</strong></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-48683459663525956162009-01-26T12:13:00.001+00:002009-01-26T12:13:49.759+00:00eComm09 - Going, Going, Going...<p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SX2o8oOTh0I/AAAAAAAAAYM/xl7d-sJs0Jk/s1600-h/Little%20Company%20Big%20Threat%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Little Company Big Threat" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SX2o_MStKmI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/-86IEdkzVoo/Little%20Company%20Big%20Threat_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="414" height="280" /></a> </p> <p>Prompted by Alan Quayle <a href="http://www.alanquayle.com/blog/2009/01/ecomm-conference-2009-update-m.html">here</a> I thought I'd put up a few reasons we are interested in going to <a href="http://ecommconf.com/">eComm09</a> in March.</p> <p><a href="http://ecommconf.com/2009/interval-of-interest.php">Ed Fontana</a> of the Android Developer, Commuter Community Android App is speaking about "Intervals of Interest" and how it affects the design of mobile applications. I have a background (both practical and research based) in the Lean Production values of the Automotive industry, so I think this talk should be fascinating because it has as its centre the concept of reducing friction in social interactions.</p> <p><a href="http://ecommconf.com/2009/deep-dialing-fonolo.php">Shai Berger</a> from Fonolo will be looking back on a year of "deep dialing" . Fonolo is a great favourite with the guys from Telco2.0 because it also "reduced friction" in the interaction. The problem is kind-of simple (which all great problems are): you want to speak to a particular part of the customer service organisation, but you have to go through all the IVR menu's to get there. Fonolo enables you to direct dial the desired destination because they have mapped that company's system.  At VoiceSage we've taken advantage of this kind of thinking as well because when we map out a process (or more to the point, when you map out your own process) you can assign a deep dial as one of the process steps. One instance where this is used is where a person has been called and asked if they wish to make a payment as part of a process. Previous steps may have specified how much that person wishes to pay, their account details, or the currency etc. When linking to an Autopay solution we "deep dial" that IVR and forward the relevant details so you don't have to ask for them again. </p> <p><a href="http://ecommconf.com/2009/cloud-telephony.php">Irv Shapiro</a> of IfByPhone will be speaking about Voice Services in the cloud. IfByPhone grabbed some attention last year by integrating their click2call capability with Google Analytics so that you could evaluate the ultimate effectiveness of your click strategy. Irv will be demonstrating some of his business cases and speaking about the technology architecture. </p> <p>There are some "hardcore network" sessions and some pretty cutting edge ones on mobile wireless that I would love to sit in on, and mostly not understand. One good reason why we are sending our CTO <a href="http://ecommconf.com/2009/cebp-saving-making-money.php">Graham Brierton</a> to the conference where he will be giving a very, very interesting talk on some of our next generation thinking.</p> <p><u>The Picture?:</u> If you are wondering what the picture is about, some of the things you will see at eComm09 are the early evidence of some big shifts that are lurking their under the Telco waters....</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-82337015710714833372009-01-05T15:56:00.001+00:002009-01-05T15:56:51.578+00:00Welcome 2009<p><strong><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SWItvT7NurI/AAAAAAAAAXc/t8LqsPYuWKA/s1600-h/symbolic%20consumption%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="symbolic consumption" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SWItwvBeK5I/AAAAAAAAAXk/k-kAzekm0Ug/symbolic%20consumption_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="319" height="361" /></a> </strong></p> <p><strong>Quick Note</strong></p> <p>Let me begin by saying a quick thanks to all of you that read this blog. 2008 was a great year for VoiceSage. We have many new clients on board and I hope to be able to bring you some stories and research based on their experiences to date. We will also be running a series of webinars and conference calls to discuss issues relating to how you can get even more from the VoiceSage service, so if any of you reading this are interested, why not drop us an email or phone call and we will see what we can do to fit you in.</p> <p><strong>Credit Crunch To Precipitate Change In Buying Behaviour?</strong></p> <p>Jeff Nolan over on <a href="http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2008/12/31/2009-predictions/">Venture Chronicles</a> makes a good point about 2009 and the effect of the credit crunch: people behave differently when spending their own saved cash than when spending on credit. This will result in people turning to Utility in their purchasing. Although my head tells me "true", another older, atavistic, marketing brain tells me, if so, why are people still buying Fendi handbags? I think that marketing and customer service people are going to have to embrace the concepts of connectiveness and social media even more when its not the price that matters, its your confidence that this is the right price. Thus, I think we will see more use of (mobile) coupons, we will see more use of iPhone/N95/Blackberry applications that scan a barcode and compare prices/ tell you what friends bought this/ etc. etc. </p> <p><strong>Credit Card Fraud: Get Pro-Active</strong> </p> <p>Not that I think crime is a direct substitute product for work but there is no denying that as times get harder, crime rates will rise, and we will see increased fraud attempts. There are some super practical tips on protecting yourself from Credit Card Fraud from <a href="http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2008/12/22/card-fraud-what-can-one-do/">Light Blue Touchpaper</a>. I found one or two of the comments especially interesting: (1) If you can personalise your card, or you get a card that is designed to demonstrate success, are you signaling that this is a good card to target? (2) If you are a particular type of person, or travelling in a dodgy area, why can't you elect to get a phone verification on every purchase? </p> <p><strong>The Future is Social (and Green, and Friendly, and all That)</strong></p> <p>Paul Greenberg has a great end of <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/crm/?p=109">year review of CRM</a>, where he points out InsideView and Landslide. What I love about InsideView is that its liked a "link-weighted" search strategy for people (uh, yeah, what LinkedIn should have). Paul also points out <a href="http://www.helpstream.biz/">HelpStream</a> which he reckons is the prime example of a CRM 2.0 play that truly gets it. It makes total sense as long as you understand that not all the information pertinent to every decision you make resides within your own organisation. It also makes sense that not all the knowledge/ skills you need to service your customers might reside within your organisation. And as it happens there is no need to throw my two pence/ cent/ cents worth into this, because a recent series of posts by <a href="http://www.brucemacvarish.com/">Bruce McVarish</a> does it all so well.  Enjoy.</p> <p>I picked up New Scientist this month and its theme of your social network influences you more than you know caught my eye (and reverberated with a <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/smiling_in_your_social_network_photos_means_you_have_more_friends.php">RWW article</a> on how smiling Facebook photo may indicated you may have more friends, and that happiness clusters). If it can be scientifically shown that 1st, 2nd and 3rd order contacts can actually influence our mood, and propensity for happiness, those that are able to attract the network to them and act as a co-coordinating node, will be those that succeed. </p> <p><strong>Note On Image:</strong> Symbolic Consumption will remain as strong an influence as ever in 2009 and beyond.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-76887665561539585002008-12-18T14:56:00.001+00:002008-12-18T14:56:19.624+00:00All Roads Lead To RSS, Enterprise Data Capture and Release Scheme...<p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SUpkkDlzx8I/AAAAAAAAASo/KX2ugQ735L8/s1600-h/Image10%5B4%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Image10" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SUpkkhSHpzI/AAAAAAAAASs/5nVjSQF0INk/Image10_thumb%5B2%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="400" height="280" /></a> </p> <p>The ever excellent RRW <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/gmail_preferred_by_students_but_nothing_beats_texting.php">reports</a> a study that shows that the kids like gmail, and sms. Awesome. Also, that corporate types are obsessed with checking their email. What I found interesting though was that the kids used email to get updates from their social network and other types of alerts. I suspect that like me, they have many groups, clubs, networks that they are members of, and that email is a pretty good place to aggregate the flow of alerts. Which leads me to wonder if gmail will just email me a report at the end of every working day, telling me "what's going on, and what needs responding to".</p> <p>In what must be one of the coolest company names I have come across in a while Cynapse brings these <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_from_cynapse_activity_streams_on_the_company_desktop.php">kinds of activity flows</a> to the desktop. It alerts you as to the change in status of many of the objects and relationships in your corporate environment, which are relevant to you and your team. What I like about it is that it is an example of "loosely coupled, tightly integrated" where you could choose to use it for simple "group notification streams", or more tightly integrate it with an Enterprise wide collaboration capability. As one of the commentators says though, its hard to see where this adds value beyond being an interesting way to present RSS feed activity generated by people and systems.</p> <p>Again, RWW <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/first_igoogle_banking_gadget_by_fidelity.php">bring news</a> of Fidelity bank using them damn widget - gadgets to enable actual transactions. Check your current bank balance from the iGoogle front page. Mmmm. I think we can see where this is going folks ( see more from <a href="http://www.telco2.net/blog/2008/12/what_would_bank_20_look_like.html#more">Martin Geddes</a> on this topic of Banking2.0). RWW suggest that myWorklight might be behind this particular implementation.</p> <p>That's where <a href="http://www.myworklight.com">www.myworklight.com</a> have made some interesting announcements. They have an integration with NetVibes that allows you to actually transact with others. Say you wanted to publish out a widget for "Special offers" in "Restaurants around here", and post it to your own Company Dashboard so you could order for the office every day. Well, you could do that, and pay for it, through the myworklight integration. Oh damn, you can do that with a  credit card? mmmm, how about you integrated with your company purchase management platform, or your benefits in kind / expenses management system? or or or.... My head starts to come off me when I think of all the ways that this could be used. The caveat I would have at this stage is that anytime I hear "server install" I start to worry about scale. I know that this is about security, but whenever I hear the terms "download" I kind-of worry for the company. </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-26883111298049322722008-12-09T12:57:00.001+00:002008-12-09T12:57:06.645+00:00Time and Tidings and Time to Stick a Fork In It...<p><strong><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/ST5qlYPz5JI/AAAAAAAAASg/068Ys8c3xDs/s1600-h/Image2%5B4%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Image2" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/ST5qmeY_0sI/AAAAAAAAASk/QpU0MjDvaQo/Image2_thumb%5B2%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="403" height="294" /></a> </strong></p> <p><strong>Great Timing For Voice Navigation</strong></p> <p>Great timing from the people at Mobivox. They get a lot of this Telco2 stuff and it shows in this <a href="http://comunicano.typepad.com/files/mobivoxwhitepapernovember.pdf">white paper.</a> It reminds me of a personal assistant service in the US a few years ago called WildFire which had a virtual personal assistant in the middle of a unified communications service.  I think what we are seeing with Mobivox though is the emergency of a kind of two sided revenue model a little further down the chain. Telco's pay for getting to market without huge forklift upgrades, and end users get "mostly free services" with some paid for add-ons (maybe payments functionality). This also comes hot on the heels of Google voice based search offer on the iPhone, which everyone is going a little ga-ga for. Perhaps the most important element of that is that users are being trained by the biggest players on the block to use "Voice User Interfaces". </p> <p><strong>Time To Stick a Fork In It: Blackberry Storm</strong></p> <p>New Blackberry storm was handed across the table to me yesterday, and let me tell you, the experience sucked eggs. Almost no part of the experience was intuitive. From how the hell do I get the SIM card in there (oh take the battery out first), to how do I get the SIM back out  (still trying to sort that one out). The touch screen interface is annoying with basic "handling" of transition from one functionality to the next super-clunk-e. How do I get rid of that keyboard when I am just finished with that bit of typing? why can't I seem to just press on a text entry box in the browser to put in the password? I could go on. On the positive side their desktop manager does allow you to add a new device to an old account so all your passwords and setting move across and that is useful indeed. God, I hate the touch-screen so much.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-36071835608323205752008-12-03T12:11:00.001+00:002008-12-03T12:11:32.136+00:00Build Trust - Trust Santa? - Banking Y<p><strong><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/STZ3bYGFtUI/AAAAAAAAASY/PkS2xVtkfAc/s1600-h/JeminaKiss-Moroco-Phone%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="JeminaKiss-Moroco-Phone" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/STZ3cusjtmI/AAAAAAAAASc/Z7RBEtlLO_s/JeminaKiss-Moroco-Phone_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="387" height="276" /></a> </strong></p> <p><strong>Customer Experience - Building Trust Flow?</strong></p> <p>The Whetstone Group did a report "The Importance of Customer Experience in A Down Economy", (get report <a href="http://www.customerfutures.com/downeconomypublication">here</a>) and the capstone comments is something that I can completely relate to, i.e. </p> <blockquote> <p>“There is an alarming lack of alignment between customer emotional expectations and corporate action plans that can only result in frustration and growing distrust by customers.”</p> </blockquote> <p>Yes, many customers are going to have a renewed and vigorous review of pricing, but there is another set that are going to need to feel a renewed sense of control in a very unsteady and fearful environment. There are many things to take from this report but some of my early take always are "what are you doing to be build trust with your customers?"; "what are you doing to actively listen for new issues, new fears appearing in the life of your customers?"; and "what are you doing to reduce the feelings of stress for your customers"?  Emotionally rewarding outcomes are what will get you rewarded in the long term.</p> <p><strong>Santa - Line</strong></p> <p>Neat use of telecommunications: <a href="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2008/12/02/vonage-offers-free-calls-to-santa.aspx ">kids phone up Santa</a> to tell him what they want, because often, they don't want to tell their parents what they <em>really</em> want. System emails parents (because you have to be a Vonage customer to use this), and parents retrieve the message. Besides, "what ever happened to privacy :)" a great example of totally taking home the booby prize. You could have opened the system to everybody and achieved one of your core marketing objectives: get a new user to trial Vonage and experience its benefits. </p> <p><strong>Banking on Y</strong></p> <p><a href="http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/pnc-bank-breaks-through-gen-y-blindspot/">Bruce Temkin</a> on the other hand seems to have a fairly good grasp on what is required at the very minimum to compete in the provision of experience to Gen Y. He shows how a bank brought in IDEO to design a service that just spoke their language, and I have to admit, parts of this I found very cool. For instance showing me I have $200 in my account tells me nothing; telling me I have half my savings objective does; telling me I am at my lowest level of saving ever, does; telling me things in context, not just flat-footed numbers. I just soooo love the virtual wallet feature that redlines your Danger Days for you, yes, the days you are predicted to spend, or pay bills, and will have less money than you need to meet these demands. The bank will then allow you to transfer money from your Reserve Account to meet these, or move some of your bill payment dates :)</p> <p>Oh, and how does the bank know how to do this? (Gee, they have huge complex automated giga-mega-load servers crunching away, right?), nope; they give you the saver a slider bar and let you divide your money pile up into Scheduled (for payments) Free (to spend), Reserve (for savings), and you can move that bar back and forth as YOU like. of Course if you go over, by miscalculating, and overspending, you may automatically be given an overdraft and incur some interest rates, but hey I'd rather the payment went out than damage my credit worthiness. Oh, and of course at the end of the month I can get a full report on where I spent my money.</p> <p>All of these functionalities are easy, graphical, and no doubt "iPhone friendly". No min charges, no min amounts. Seems like Min fuss to me.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-24547521926086188672008-11-25T12:27:00.001+00:002008-11-25T12:27:42.717+00:00The Future of Messaging - The Social Dimension<p><b><u><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SSvvLSDgYpI/AAAAAAAAASI/7nHLRyzjOiA/s1600-h/Social%20Signals%20Are%20Real%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Social Signals Are Real" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SSvvNGJGOQI/AAAAAAAAASM/9ZgR-HEfEK4/Social%20Signals%20Are%20Real_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="387" height="281" /></a> </u></b></p> <p><b><u>Where Do We Look? - As Usual, To The Young.</u></b></p> <p>Innovation in messaging rarely comes from the places you expect. Telco’s thought SMS messaging so useless that they didn’t even bother to price interconnect costs when it was launched. This initial cross network capability (reach), and the relatively low price compared to voice calls, found a niche among young people facing a key constraint: they wanted to communicate with friends but could not  afford to communicate as much as they would like. Once there was a price incentive in place and millions of people were using it new <em>contexts</em> were found that were uniquely appropriate for text. For instance the now common  "running 10 minutes late" message. </p> <p>In effect SMS created a new back-channel conversation.</p> <p><b><u>What Is a Message?</u></b></p> <p>Sounds like a strange question but Twitter? (www.twitter.com) or comments have re-spun this.  When we "message as social network grooming" we often do not expect a reply, or not right away, but we do expect some form of reciprocity within a certain time frame. Having received a number of fairly passive SMS's from a friend we may feel a strong pressure to not only text back, but actually call them. We "owe" them a call. It is the power of the social bond that creates this pressure to respond.</p> <p>In the past much of our messaging was one-to-one, we wrote and sent a letter; we picked up a phone and called somebody. Technology enabled us to use the phone to message many others such as group SMS capability (one-to-many). From a particular perspective Interactive Voice Messaging could be considered to be one-to-many in that the call center is calling many customers to give them a message and the option to reconnect. The intertube however excels in creating many-to-many capabilities. So from another perspective, Interactive Voice Messaging matches available customers willing to take the call, and available agents or employees available and suited to take that call. In this case the intertube hosted service acts as a kind of "platform of availability". </p> <p>Messages are also not static spatial objects sitting in our inbox. They are part of a flow of communication, and it the flow that is becoming increasingly important. Twitter and Facebook present  us with a flow of comments, pictures and the activities of our friends, and we then choose to connect to these comments and pictures or not. The initial posting of the comment or picture is what sociologists refer to as "weak signaling" in that they attract or encourage others to reciprocate with a comment, or to post their own picture. These signals occur in an environment of  many-to-many messaging, and signaling.  Messages themselves could also be considered as being signals that attracts further attention and interaction. The launch of Google Mail (gmail) with conversation threading is one example of an application service that acts in this way.</p> <p>In conclusion, a message is no longer just the physical letter, the text or talking content. A message can no longer just be considered part of a 1-to-1 interaction that no one else sees, hears or shares. And with the Internet we are likely to see the rise of "communications" themselves as being things, as being social objects, that can be shared, discussed, or that create value in ways we do not currently appreciate.</p> <p><b>Part 2</b></p> <p><b><u>Messaging Will Be Consumed Socially</u></b></p> <p>People with strong common interests or common goals will have reasons to commit to communicating more with each other.  The relationship context will determine how much or how little information we want to know about these people, or from these people. That's why Facebook allows you to "get more or less about this person". This is necessary because as individuals we like to be able to control the flow of information and potential interruptions we are exposed to. From Internet alerts, pings telling us we have new email, to our phone ringing when just about anybody phones, as individuals we desire a way to control that inbound flow. The main problem is that these events come with little context, and little understanding of what I find important right now. Previously the costs associated with making a call acted as an inherent  fee that the caller was willing to pay because they believed the call to be important. With actual call costs decreasing over the last five years, and with the rise of free services such as instant messaging, email and Skype calling, this cost barrier has been substantially lowered, and for many eliminated altogether. We need a new way to figure out which communications are important or not.</p> <p>As with Internet searches a good predictor of what we like is what we have liked before, what our friends like, and what "people like us, like" (i.e. our profile). In Internet terms I read articles and stories that are recommended by friends (perhaps through Google Reader), or are suggested as stories I might like (as in Google news). This is a blend of algorithmic (automated) and social (physical) filtering. An example might be where we Google the term Restaurant and then check the top three results with some friends to see if anyone we know has actually been there. </p> <p>We think that this kind of behaviour may play some part in how we manage our interactions with others in terms of "offering invitations to conversation". It will be a blend of automated suggestions and screening, coupled with social filtering and suggestion. When we leave an SMS, this might be seen as a weak invitation to conversation (give me a call back if this interests you). An email might contain a live link to the number of remaining seats at a concert, which might act as an incentive to call back and book a seat when bookings reached a certain point. These would be examples of passive and active invitations. </p> <p>Some social filtering of the invitation to conversation cycle might be exampled by new services such as http://skydeck.com, and www.xobni.com. These new consumer services hook into your mobile phone (skydeck) to find out who you call, how long you called them, and presents you with the names you call most often at the top of the list. But it might also recommend who you haven't spoken to in a while. It examines the flow of your calling behaviour to find out who is really important to you. Xobni does the same for your email, but also presents you with information as to who is important to the people that you connect to. Add to this all the data being generated on social networks, and internal corporate networks, and you are looking at a fundamental shift in terms of how we engage with others to open up conversation. </p> <p><b><u>We Give Permission and Pay Attention</u></b></p> <p>So messages can be thought of as having social grooming characteristics; as re-enforcing social-bonds; and that often it is the flow of communication that is important, not the individual message per say. We see that messages can act as "social objects" that attract further further comment or action. For companies this means that messages have to be considered as part of an overall communications strategy that builds and supports the customer relationship. Ultimately it is the individual that gives the company permission to call them. Companies have to take care that each message conveys the appropriate content but also that it is in the appropriate flow, otherwise customers withdraw the attention they are willing to give to you, and withdraw from the relationship. Worse still, when these customers withdraw, others in their social network will see them withdraw and will then actively reconsider their own relationship with the company or their opinion of that company. </p> <p>Companies and vendors of services will have to understand that our willingness to engage will contain both automated and social filtering of invitations to conversation, and that the companies "one-to-one relationship" with the customer is really going to be part of an overall network of "many-to-many relationships", and "many to many conversations".  Found yourself sending email through Linkedin inMail, or Facebook email? You know, I think you are already doing this stuff.</p> <p><strong>What?</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SSvvOE6YbyI/AAAAAAAAASQ/zsdGTLx8mUU/s1600-h/Partial%20Attention%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Partial Attention" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SSvvPVKYyHI/AAAAAAAAASU/L-Buu-JsqLo/Partial%20Attention_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="430" height="195" /></a></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-81422507883581584022008-11-21T20:41:00.001+00:002008-11-21T20:41:39.713+00:00Will - Tell - Tail - Thaler<p><strong><u>The Long Tail a Shaggy Dog Tail?</u></strong></p> <p>Will Page at Telco2 rolled out <a href="http://www.telco2.net/blog/2008/11/exclusive_interview_will_page.html#more">some results</a> on research conducted with a "major online music hub", on "long tail economics". The long and the short of it (ta-dum!), is that the Internet and "physical retail" have the same distribution, and the long tail may not be serviceable at all. This is no simple contrarian view, Will knows his stuff and this is going into the Harvard Business Review. It really is interesting to compare to other social media studies of content creation, co-creation, and consumption. </p> <p><strong><u>Demming Undoes Detroit</u></strong></p> <p>In a week that sees Detroit on bended knee (albeit, one that was flown in on a private jet), Toyota continues to be a model of lean production values. McKinsey carry a piece on getting Toyota lean production into an organisation, and from what I can see, its the same thing that Toyota were expounding 30 years ago. Its our survival we are talking about, lets get responsible to each other, lets make it better every day. Yes there are tools, and yes their are techniques, but as the article says "Its the soft stuff that's hard to do".</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SScc-BFTEOI/AAAAAAAAAR4/K2rtmYnXp1Y/s1600-h/six-habits-lean-leaders%5B6%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="six-habits-lean-leaders" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SScc_LS1qVI/AAAAAAAAAR8/PgwQlBvHRSY/six-habits-lean-leaders_thumb%5B4%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="465" height="535" /></a> </p> <p><strong><u>The Inter-Temporal Choice of Swans</u></strong></p> <p>And if you were wondering (as I was a few days ago) as to why people make strange decisions around what they can and cannot afford to buy (and repay), Mr. Thaler of the Ole Black Swan has a paper on Inter-Temporal choice, a fancy way for saying people make dumb decisions when the results are times into the future. From simple experiments on discounting future money to social engineering in Virginia where if high school kids dropped out of school they lost their driving licence, reveal that many are unable to delay gratification into the future. </p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SScc_9e3klI/AAAAAAAAASA/paHP-UkttUs/s1600-h/InterTemporal%20Choice%20Graph%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="InterTemporal Choice Graph" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SScdAroE1-I/AAAAAAAAASE/7xA-ZRySlTw/InterTemporal%20Choice%20Graph_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="428" height="388" /></a> </p> <p>Go have a gander <a href="http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/richard.thaler/research/articles/1-Intertemporal_Choice.pdf">at the paper</a>, its interesting. </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-70406608631474580652008-11-19T15:52:00.001+00:002008-11-19T15:52:48.641+00:00Data Strategy, 1938<p>Notes from <i>The Art of Conversation</i></p> <p>by Milton Wright, 1936</p> <p>The ability to talk well can be cultivated.</p> <p>Interest you must have if your conversation is to be successful.</p> <p>Interest can lie primarily in the subject or the person, the latter being by far the surer ingredient for success.</p> <p>To chatter is easy. To talk resultfully with the hostile, suspicious, indifferent or even friendly is an art.</p> <p>To really become a good conversationalist over the long term it is necessary to acquire the habit of conscientiously stocking your mind with facts and information and then forming opinions on the basis of that knowledge.</p> <p>A monologue is not a conversation.</p> <p>Silence plays an important part in effective conversation just as it does in music.</p> <p>Masters of the art of conversation rarely give advice, and then, usually, only when requested. It is given tentatively and without seeming to impose their wishes.</p> <p>The secret of giving advice successfully is to mix it up with something that implies a real consciousness of the adviser's own defects, and as much as possible of an acknowledgment of the other party's merits.</p> <p>To plant a suggestion is a real test of conversational skill.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-17548296377437718842008-11-18T14:11:00.001+00:002008-11-18T14:11:07.073+00:00Behaviour and Action, Cause and Effect<p> <strong><u>Oh Great Shiny Bubble</u></strong></p> <p>The New York Times gives a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/11/10/business/20081111_MORTGAGES.html">great visualisation</a> of house value declines in the USA. Irish site <a href="http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/Irish_2/article_1015142_printer.shtml">FinFacts</a> gives a long history of warning signs that went unheeded, and practices that drove this frenzied behaviour. But the question I really have is that even with all this information, and other information besides, would our behaviour and actions change? I mean lets face it lots of people knew we were in a housing bubble but most were still drawn to its shiny bubble surface. I think I need to dig a little into decision making within certain timeframe's and unreasonable weighing up of <em>"perhaps </em>lots of money next year", versus "reasonable money in ten years" (i.e. delayed gratification). Another way of looking at it could be the "problem of the commons" in that by acting in our own short term interest we brought about a collective collapse. Most commentators to date have focused on bad lending practices, but what about our own bad borrowing practices and our attitude to credit? </p> <p><strong><u> Data Is The Path To Insight?</u></strong></p> <p>I have been thinking that the key capability of a company may be the ability to generat Insight. But now, I am not so sure.(HT: <a href="http://denispombriant.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/strategy-forecasting-and-these-times/">Denis Pombriant</a>)</p> <blockquote> <p>“The necessary outcome of strategic planning is not <em>analytical insight</em> but <em>resolve</em>” (David Maister)</p> </blockquote> <p>By this I am sure he means we know that the right things to do are, its just not always that interesting to keep doing them or to get them done. It does remind me of Werner Vogels at Telco2 saying that they knew (Amazon) that they had to focus on scope of catalogue, building visitor traffic, and lowering costs everywhere. Their "platform strategy" had to be a committed strategy, and joined up, and the management had to have the resolve to see it through, even though shareholders were unlikely to understand what they were doing, initially. Perhaps some of this resolve came from the CEO who has invested in some "dogs" in his day, but the learning led them to Platform strategy, and to Kindle, both billion dollar businesses. That and a "relentless focus on being customer centric".</p> <p><strong><u>So Why Is Customer Service Still In Trouble?</u></strong></p> <p>Well, perhaps its the small things that count. <a href="http://mashable.com/2008/11/16/customer-service-crisis/">Mashable just posted</a> up their take on a recent pew report that shows we are absolute crap at getting customer service, particularly around Tech support.</p> <p>- 38% of users with failed technology contacted user support for help. <br />- 28% of technology users fixed the problem themselves. <br />- 15% fixed the problem with help from friends or family. <br />- 15% of tech users were unable to fix their devices. <br />- 2% found help online. </p> <h5>Consumers’ Attitudes About Various Forms of Tech Support:</h5> <p>- 72% felt confident that they were on the right track to solving the problem. <br />- 59% felt impatient to solve the problem because they had important uses for the broken technology. <br />- 48% felt discouraged with the amount of effort needed to fix the problem. <br />- 40% felt confused by the information that they were getting.</p> <p>Wow, nearly 60% were so convinced the company wouldn't be able to give them good service, that they just didn't bother to call ! It felt like it was going to need a "big effort to fix", that it was making them feel "impatient", and then probably "discouraged" and angry? I think this may be a case of "interaction friction" before the customer even gets on the phone, or the web.</p> <p><strong><u>All This Miracles And We Are Still Miserable?</u></strong></p> <p><a href="http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2008/11/17/great-expectations/">Eric over at Demand Satisfaction</a> posted this video that just shows, perhaps, how unacceptably jaded we have become about the miracles of technology. </p> <p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:859e0114-e940-4700-a9b2-be4588da40ca" class="wlWriterSmartContent"><div><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vbIGbZ6gq_Y"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vbIGbZ6gq_Y" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object></div></div></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-46808677422163154612008-11-12T15:50:00.001+00:002008-11-12T15:50:22.391+00:00Tweet Tweet ! Your Company Has Flu...<p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SRr7OeNNUtI/AAAAAAAAARw/GP86rqNcZvI/s1600-h/pig%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="pig" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SRr7PImMRHI/AAAAAAAAAR0/0-xbO0DiAnM/pig_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="417" height="276" /></a> </p> <p>I think I said this a good time ago now, but we are only barely using the Internet to track information that is socially useful. The BBC reports that Google is now helping <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7724503.stm">map the spread of flu</a> by tracking keyword searches. </p> <p>Chis Barraclaugh, STL Partners at <a href="http://www.telco2.net/event/november2008/index.php">Telco2</a> last week had a great slide showing how all of Google's recent moves were investments in customer data. </p> <p>Over at <a href="http://blogs.sas.com/sascom/index.php?/archives/375-Grounds-for-Conversation-Optimizing-Your-Segmenting-Strategies-episode-4.html#comments">SAS Blog</a> there was a nice back and forth on the strategic use of customer contact. It is so easy to forget that in large companies each section, dept, division wants to send messages, calls, letters to the end customer. These requests have be filtered, rated, and evaluated by the company itself.  Something in the back of my mind tells me that something this overall approach is ripe for some new thinking, like, <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/zappos_twitter.php">here for instance</a>. As if to reinforce this point, I saw the original SAS Blog entry because their SAS Magazine Editor is on Twitter, and she tweeted a link to the post.</p> <p>Now what's with the pig? Well it goes to authenticity and two way value creation. I am a great believer that all customer interactions should be build to reduce the friction within the interaction, and should be seamlessly bound to the business process itself. We are on that journey here at VoiceSage.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-7364194638547131262008-11-06T16:41:00.002+00:002008-11-06T16:44:17.057+00:00Post Telco2<p> </p> <p><u><strong>Telco2: Janus or Dear Jesus?</strong></u></p> <p>I think <a href="http://eurotelcoblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/before-i-drop.html">Mr. Enck</a> called it well when he pointed out how impressive and pertinent <a href="http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/">Mr. Vogels</a> presentation was. The clarity of strategic vision, the simplicity of focus, was awesome. What I found intriguing was that each iteration of the platform thinking defined a new element of the fly-wheel, a new virtuous reinforcement mechanism. They brought the merchants (merchant platform), so that "the catalogue" was the biggest on the web, your "go to" destination; they built traffic (Traffic Platform) through a kind of open linking strategy, opening out book references, and giving  incentives traffic of 4-7%revenue share. Most people would stop there, hey we have great customer traffic flow and the best stock available, cool. But no, they saw that they had to be the best price possible too, and this implied that they had to reduce the cost of infrastructure (answer: open out your Fulfillment platform so any merchant can send their product through the amazon warehousing network), and then the webstore platform, the enterprise service platform which is like a managed service for other web retailers (and a Labour platform, a Digital Media Platform, an Infrastructure Platform, and yes, a Telco Platform). As amazing as this journey, this evolution was, three things struck me with laser clarity:</p> <p>- These guys have <strong>complete clarity on their strategic principles</strong> and will take big hits to protect them;</p> <p>- They pay attention to <strong>"micro-incentives" and "micro-barriers"</strong> to desired behaviours;</p> <p>- They innovate around <strong>things that remain important</strong> over the long run, not just "new things".</p> <p>If I were in the Strategic section of a Telco, I'd be looking to workshop my Two Sided Telco play with these guys in the room. On a personal level I met some old friends, and I think met some new and interesting people that I hope to follow up with. </p> <p><u><strong>Hack The World: Health and Telecommunications</strong></u></p> <p>Again, the excellent <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/project_masiluleke_takes_on_ai.php">RRW</a> has a piece on how mobile communications is being used in Africa to encourage people to see the Doctor and speak about their health concerns relating to TB and Aids. "Please Call Me" text messages are issued from Doctors to the population to encourage them to engage early; "Text reminders" are used to remind people to take their medication or attend a clinic; the call backs are handled by a virtual call centre of "people like you" that will understand your condition, your life, your emotions; mobile blood testing units are brought to the people so that they don't have to suffer the stigma of having to stand in line. If Telecommunications companies are wondering how context, content, community and communications can be braided together in ways that actually improve the state of the world, well, this is one fine example.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SRMd9dDsu8I/AAAAAAAAARo/lQi-NmPFkNc/s1600-h/Self-loading-cargo%5B2%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Self-loading-cargo" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SRMd-IkasPI/AAAAAAAAARs/HORZ24Pmxz4/Self-loading-cargo_thumb.png?imgmax=800" width="244" height="243" /></a> </p> <p><strong>Note To Self:</strong> Human Beings Are Not "Self Loading Cargo Units".</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-48480780207221727872008-10-31T15:01:00.001+00:002008-10-31T15:01:38.824+00:00Open - Networking<p><u><strong><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SQsdvQaGAtI/AAAAAAAAARQ/5J49oxtXKsM/s1600-h/ElephantFolds3.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" border="0" alt="Elephant Folds" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SQsdwXumzAI/AAAAAAAAARU/sjPGKambstY/ElephantFolds_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="395" height="260" /></a> </strong></u></p> <p><u><strong>Hard Times For Big Vendors and Little Ones Alike?</strong></u></p> <p>In cold times it would seem mobile telecoms are still a <a href="http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2008/london/videos/tim-bray/">Hot item</a> (Tim Bray, Sun Microsystems, at FOWA London). People will give up that glass of wine, but not a $1.50 iPhone Application that gives them real value. And now that iPhone and Google have offline capability you can do a <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/seven_must-have_offline_apps_for_iphone_and_ipod_touch.php">lot of great stuff</a>. It is indeed a great time to build mobile applications, but I would also caution that 1998 was a great time to build a website, and building a website doesn't have a great reputation as a sure fire way to making you rich. Today the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/technology/companies/31sun.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&src=ig&oref=slogin">New York Times</a> features Sun prominently as a company with big problems, so perhaps Tim's FOWA talk was from the heart. Some of these problems are good old fashioned competitive pressure in core product markets, and others are good old fashioned product development slippages. These are combined with the "slower than anticipated" update of its open source programs and initiatives (BTW: great piece from JP here on why <a href="http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2008/10/21/learning-about-why-people-dont-adopt-opensource/">Open Source</a> may be stalling at the large enterprise level).</p> <p>If you are thinking of building an application, Tim says "build it for yourself, its hard to understand the needs of others", there are others out there a lot like you and they will probably buy it. And watch out for the VC's, they don't understand 2.0, and they don't bring value (mmm, not sure of that one, know plenty of smart VC's). Gosh, this sounds like a sure way to end up on the bread line to me (but you will have your snazzy iPhone to keep you occupied). There is a reason people like "product managers" exist, just saying ye know. Its probably safer to think of Tim's comments as prods to get yourself multi-skilled, and to develop a "Career Portfolio". </p> <p>The Elephant in the room is that most <em>people</em> are going to want to pay zero upfront to save money and are now being educated to "think like Google". I want it for free, or some version of it for free. I want it super simple. I want it to do one thing really really well. Agreed. One of my take aways from JP's posting is "<em>the Enterprise has been trained to think like Microsoft</em>", and this frames all enterprise adoption arguments in Microsoft's favour. What I particularly found interesting was the focus not on Excel, but on Excel Micros as a significant barrier to adoption of OpenOffice, and that the cascading effects this had on the need to redesign the Macro's, estimate the cost of the same, estimating the cost of failure. At the end of the day, the purchasing dept used the study to beat up Microsoft on price, and buy, uh hum, more Microsoft product.</p> <p><u><strong>What Do Tough Times Mean For The Enterprise?</strong></u></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SQsdxeUwrBI/AAAAAAAAARY/yIJRYhKMw7w/s1600-h/Software-security%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Software-security" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SQsdyc-uZPI/AAAAAAAAARc/W6Jhy6MqRwE/Software-security_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="391" height="269" /></a> </p> <p>Tim Bray was of the opinion that tough times might mean that companies look more to SaaS and to Open Source solutions. I do like the emphasis on "SaaS" and "cloud based" applications and services, of course I do, that's what we do around here. But the take away for me is the need to seriously look your "customers life right now" (i.e. the real life issues they are facing, the hard choices, the unpalatable trade offs). In my opinion, its easy to say "we are your partner" in good times and ask for some hefty integration and consulting fees to prove it. Lets see how good a problem solver you are now; lets see how flexible and adaptable you are now; lets see how your DNA shines through?. As a provider of SaaS you should now be looking deeply at some strategies for <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_technology_stack.php">maintaining your value</a> proposition. Tough times for the Enterprise customer means even SaaS entities need to bring a razor sharp focus on time to meaningful ROI.</p> <p>I think its a great idea that Tim was encouraging developers to not only skill up, but look at legacy skills (Cobal etc), and cross-skilling. Companies can equally do the same thing.Taking charge of your own Identity by building your own personal network, blog, twitter, get into social networks, and social network at events are great personal brand builders. Get known, and get known <strong>for</strong> something. Now ask yourself, "what is Sun now known <strong><em>For</em></strong>"?</p> <p><u><strong>Some Cool New Media Business Models</strong></u></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SQsdzW8c6SI/AAAAAAAAARg/2pHdY7z7gVU/s1600-h/apple-tax%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="apple-tax" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bLj568ROBJA/SQsd0K4NglI/AAAAAAAAARk/HvGjum2UoMc/apple-tax_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="413" height="316" /></a> </p> <p>Have you ever needed to read a children's book from cover to cover before you bought it because let face it, you will be reading it every night for a long long time. <a href="http://lookybook.com/index.php">Lookybook</a> lets you see the whole book before you buy it. And here's the one we have to buy (Its <a href="http://lookybook.com/mainpage.php?name_id=1244">Not Fair</a>), as we have a new arrival due in March 2009. Music sites like <a href="http://www.ineem.com">Ineem</a> and <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/20/lala-may-have-just-built-the-next-revolution-in-digital-music/">LaLa</a> have similar models for music in that they let you play the content, in its entirety, while you remain browsing on the site, no doubt hoping that the longer you hang around the more likely you are to buy a web song for 10c. I think a lot of companies are going to have to look at approaches that enable you to have a complete "experience" and that you may then proceed to commit to buying it, owning it, sharing it or some other upstream action that is predicated on shared value creation. It is a deep delayering of the digital value chain, with the understanding that some parts of the chain can better gather and aggregate data from multiple services and location, and that this will help them outpace offers that are more vertically integrated. </p> <p>So here's the tie up: <strong>people buy experiences</strong>.</p> <p>The enterprise customer is a person like you, and they want a great experience of your service, they want to be able to test and trial it and experience it and not pay for it until they know they like it, that it works. They want reliability, they want security, they want credentials, but these are "hygiene factors". The Enterprise's professionalised buying process will simply not allow them to buy in services that don't "stack up" in the traditional purchasing decision cycle. I personally believe that their will be an iTunes for Applications at the Enterprise level. Click Click Click. Done.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33063262.post-53012458002789321242008-10-29T09:58:00.002+00:002008-10-29T10:36:49.229+00:00Let's Get (meta) Physical?<p>Linkedin <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=application_directory">goes Social</a>: now you can add applications and collaborate with your contact network. This is so boneheaded it beggars belief IMHO. I can see social objects as being useful to Linkedin in that they are social evidence of influence, popularity, or expertise. Thus, your sheer volume of network contacts speaks volumes about your rolodex if you are a sales director; your online presentations show you as an expert marketing person capable of speaking to C-Level executives at conferences; your embedded Google Spreadsheets show a deep understanding of risk and analytics. I have begun to think of Linkedin as a good forum for social validation of a contact (hey, what do you think of John, did he really do such a great job at company x?) and an extendable element into other environments (Everyone on SAP could now have a linkedin directory of both internal and external experts and contacts through a linkedin mashup). </p> <p><strong>We are the Adobe Reader here, the Recruiters are the Adobe Acrobat. Give the recruiters the heavy tools, just make it 3-click easy for us to use.</strong> </p> <p>(and what's with the Meta-Physical? Linkedin encourages us to only linked with people we actually know, ie. real contacts).</p>
Update: <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/linkedin_applications_your_res.php">RWW</a> seems to present the LinkedIn Applications in the mode of being Social Objects, which is fair enough, but I still think Linkedin needs to BE THE SOCIAL OBJECT, not be the place where you can bring your social objects.<div class="blogger-post-footer">You've been noticed! Musings on customer interaction.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03194645813782269802noreply@blogger.com0